Collapsible scales have been provided heretofore and, generally, take the form of folding scales which seem to most often trade width for height providing no significant advantage over a comparably sized non-folding scale with regard to portability. For example, in Schmidt, U.S. Pat. No. 5,234,065, the scale can be folded up into one-quarter its original width. However, in doing so, the original thickness is quadrupled. As such, the overall reduction in volume is minimal and the corresponding benefit, with regard to portability, is significantly reduced.
Other collapsible scales, that provide a significant reduction in volume when in compact or collapsed form, are shown in Hulburt, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,337,446 (Hulburt '446 hereinafter). However, these scales, too, have certain disadvantages. In particular, the scales disclosed in Hulburt can be complicated or inconvenient to deploy from a compact or collapsed arrangement. Often, these scales require multiple steps to expand from the compact configuration to an extended configuration suitable for use as a weighing scale.
As such, it is considered desirable to develop new and improved collapsible scales having a reduced volume when in a compact configuration and which are expandable to a fully deployed configuration in a reduced number of steps or motions.